Emma’s Story: Too Scared to Say Anything

Hi, you can call me Emma, and for some reason I wanted to share my story with you today.

I’ll start with the beginning:
My mom lived in Paris and she went on holiday in Australia where she met my father. They fell in love and got married a few years later.

They first had my brother and then me. We were born one year appart and were close. At my birth my grandmother took me and treated me like a real princess covering me with all the love and attention she could offer. I then started to get used to the attention and it became a necessity.

When I was about 3, my mother started missing her old friends and her family so we moved to Paris.

My father came with but the separation between me and my grandmother was horrible, she was all I knew! Both my parents where working all the time witch didn’t give them a lot of time to spend with me or my brother.

At the end of the year, my parents got divorced and my father moved back to Australia. I was 4 then. I didn’t have any news from him for two years because my mom hated him so much.

I finally got to see him again when I was 6. My brother and I started traveling alone twice a year to go visit my him and my grandmother. It was scary at first but I got used to it.

In kindergarten, I was a popular kid since I was Australian and everyone thought it was cool. When iI started first grade in a different school, I was a nobody, everyone had different origins and it made me really sad: all the attention was gone! Then I met my best friend who was the most beautiful and funny girl I ever met. She made me feel important again. Let’s call her Hanna.

By the time I was 14, Hanna and I were in a group of friends of 6 girls. the year that followed that group fell appart and it was just Hanna and me left. I suffered from depression and started falling classes. I flunked that year and changed school. Hanna and I kept in touch and she still is my best friend until this day.

The new school was great, surrounded by great people. Plus I was getting all the attention I desperately craved.

But when I was about 15, I met a boy let’s call him Tobias. He was short, kind of ugly but he was really funny and I considered him like my best friend… He fed me lies about his past so that I would feel bad for him and I did, I believed every lies he fed me…

The summer of my sixteens was one of the best, my father came to Paris for two weeks and we went shopping, sight seeng,… even though my father was on the other side of the globe we where very close. Closer than I ever was with my mother who at that point kept on leaving my brother and I alone at home so she could see her new boyfriend that me and my brother hated for good reasons.

After an amazing summer, in the beginning of septembre, I got a phone call: my grandmother was in the hospital, she was very sick. I found a job so that i could pay for my ticket for the next holidays. But i never got that money in time.

She died alone in a hospital bed and I wasn’t able to attend her funerals. I never felt so alone. My mom wasn’t there much, my brother either, the only one there for me was Tobias…

He gave me all the attention I needed but wanted more… I told him I wasn’t interested so he started ghosting me, letting me down when I needed him as a friend. So I accepted to go out with him thinking that as soon as he did anything wrong, I would break up and propose to stay friends, re-become besties, but is was more complicated than that…

I found him very repulsive and making out with him discussed me… so I would close my eyes and imagine anyone else. One day, he stayed at my house even though I told him to go and that night, I woke up with him on top of me pleasuring himself with my boobs… I was in shock.I didn’t know what to do and just pretended to sleep. I wanted to throw up. I thought I deserved it so I said nothing.

His birthday approached and he wanted to get physical. I told him no but he didn’t want to hear it… so on his birthday he brought condoms… he put one on and started taking off my clothes. At first I resisted but then he started saying thins to me, like « believe me, you want this, I’m just taking what I deserve! Stop being a bitch and shut up! » I froze, I couldn’t move!It was my first time… I felt like he stabbed me from the inside, it was the most painful thing I ever experienced.

The next day he pretended like nothing happened, like it wasn’t rape so I kept quiet. I thought I deserved It and for a long time I believed it was all in my head. I was in denial. The second time it happened i didn’t even resist and the third time I even pretended to like it even though I just wanted to throw up and scream. I thought I needed his attention and he kept manipulating me to either feel that I need him or feel sorry for him. Another thing was that he kept on comparing me to his ex like: « She is a better kisser, she has a better sense of humour, she wold do it, she BLA-BLA-BLA! »

A few moths passed and I just started distancing myself from everything and everyone. He didn’t like it so said we should take a break. After everything he put me through I just exploded! How dare he say I am too sad, too distant? I lost my grandmother and got raped three times by him! I was furious and I finally had the courage to just leave him.

Of course since he told everyone we where together when I asked him not to everyone where asking questions he told everyone a story where I am the bad guy who broke his heart.

People started to talk and my true friends asked me what happened I told them a lie saying that he wanted a break when I most needed him without ever telling anyone what truly happened thinking that I would be judged for staying with him or worse, that people wouldn’t believe me.

People believed more my story then his and it made me feel like it helped a little bit in the healing process. I never pressed charges because nobody would believe a small and likeable person like Tobias would ever do something like that or most importantly I was stronger than him, I could push him off and would have if I didn’t freeze.

For a long time I was in denial and it’s only four years later that I talked about it. I never could last in any relationship until I met Ali, he was sweet gentle, very protective and made me feel safe. He is the first person I told my story to and was very supportive. I never told him the entire story or his name because I don’t want him to get in trouble because of some dirt bag.

I still make nightmares because of what happened but Ali is always there to make the pain go away. I have difficulties to build a friendship with men and trusting them is really hard for me. Appart for a few, men disgust me and recently a family member (the husband of the cousin of my step grand mother who is in his 30’s) started touching my breast, I pushed him away, but he didn’t care so this time I ran. Once again the man who didn’t have my consent acted like nothing happened. And once again, no one would believe me appart from Ali and my close friends so I shut my mouth even though I shouldn’t. But I’m not strong enough to have to justify for something I have no control over. I shouldn’t have to but that is how it works in this fucked up world.

Thank’s for reading the hole story.
I hope if this happened to you too you know you did nothing wrong and that you had the courage to talk about it.
You are not alone and talking about it helped me a lot.